Election interest is strong and divided

Early voting in Craven County has topped the 43 percent mark and now, with Tuesday’s 2012 Election Day the last opportunity to vote, election officials are expecting high turnout at the county’s 27 regular precinct polls.

Early voting in Craven County has topped the 43 percent mark and now, with Tuesday’s 2012 Election Day the last opportunity to vote, election officials are expecting high turnout at the county’s 27 regular precinct polls.

While the turnout has meant long days since one stop voting began Oct. 18, Tuesday will be even longer for workers who all also had to get added training on laptop computers that have the voter registration data.

That has mostly gone smoothly, said Erin Burridge, Craven County elections director, with some minor computer snags because some registration data was not fully downloaded, which has now been fixed and is not recurring.

Early voting sites in New Bern, Havelock, Cove City and Vanceboro were open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturdays 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. and two Sundays from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. but workers accommodated voters in line and closing time and that often meant another hour and a half to take the marked ballot of last voter in line.

The better than 30,000 voters who have already marked an absentee ballot at one stop sites are still less than half of the 70,300 voters who were registered when early voting began.

Lines will most likely still be long at voting precincts Election Day, Burridge warned, urging Tuesday voters to show the same patience that voters waiting have so far shown.

But election workers like Barbara Khoury in New Bern and Jackie Attaway in Havelock said those in the lines have been impressed with the behavior of voters.

Craven County Board of Elections Chairman Ray Wood said the only problems have been with candidate and party supporters, wanting to get their message to voters and sometimes getting a little too close. When cautioned, all have complied with the 50–foot campaigning rule which will also be in place at precincts Election Day.

On Saturday just after 1 p.m.outside the Craven County Board of Elections polling place, two candidate poll workers - a Democrat and Republican - got into a verbal skirmish about telling someone how they should vote. It ended in a call to New Bern Police but there was no violence and no charges.

Both Wood and Burridge praised election workers dedication to the job and commitment to getting proper training to get it done right.

“I just can’t say enough good things about these election workers,” said Burridge. Curbside workers have especially challenged by voters who just didn’t understand that they, too, must wait their turn.

Curbside voting is intended only for those voters who have disabilities or conditions that won’t let them wait in line or easily come inside the polling place. It is done on a computer, rather than the paper ballots used by voters inside the polls, and will also be available Election Day.

Page 2 of 3 - The polls open again Tuesday at 6:30 a.m. Tuesday and remain open until 7:30 p.m. or until the last registered voter in line at 7:30 p.m. votes at one of 27 precincts countywide. Only already registered voters may cast ballots Election Day.

Ballots are divided into three parts: the presidential election, the other political party races beginning with governor and continuing through area district state house of representatives’ races, and – on the back – the nonpartisan races, including those for judges, school board members and sanitary sewer district commissioner.

Burridge said voters need to make certain they mark each section or, even if voting a straight party ticket, they might miss voting for president or non–partisan candidates and once the ballot is submitted, there is no coming back.

Information about registration and districts and each of the six different Craven County ballots related to that are on the Craven County Board of Elections website at cravencounty.com/departments/elc.cfm. The elections office phone number is 636–6610.

In Craven County, voters may then vote for their choice of candidates for N.C. State Senate District 2 Greg Muse – Democrat and Norman Sanderson – Republican; depending on their district N.C. House of Representatives candidates for District 3 Robert B. Cayton – Democrat and Michael Speciale – Republican, District 10 Jim Babe Hardison – Democrat or John Bell – Republican, or District 12 George Graham – Democrat or Jim Dancy – Republican.

A county political office on the ballot is Craven County Register of Deeds Sherri B. Richard – Democrat, who is unopposed.

Page 3 of 3 - Nonpartisan Craven County offices on the ballot include unopposed candidates for Craven County Board of Education including Linda M. Thomas – District and Joseph L. Walton – District 7, and contested races for District 3 Carroll G. (Carr) Ipock II and Dave LaVigne and District 5 David Hale and Tanya P. Roberts.

Gretchen C. Davis is uncontested in her bid for Solid and Water Conservation District Supervisor.